Of souls, spirituality, and humanity

[link]

Originally Posted by Fire2box

That sounds like a awesome version of "Hell". My version is a endless white room with nothing in it but you and you never have any need other then longing for some form of contact.

My version of hell is almost the same, but a little different. For me it's all black and you have no body or senses. All you can do is think for all of eternity. You can't go insane either and think you have senses.

[avery]

Originally Posted by link

My version of hell is almost the same, but a little different. For me it's all black and you have no body or senses. All you can do is think for all of eternity. You can't go insane either and think you have senses.

"how can hell be any worse
when life alone is such a curse?"
--bad religion

[Babymullet Ver 9.8]

Short answer: None of these can be proven or unproven, but for the sake of simplicity here is what I am going to say.

-No.
-I don't think there is a soul. When someone dies, there is nothing.
-No

[Jaiden]

Hm.

You're going down the classic route of having a pre-existing assertion – that such things as souls exist - and then wrapping yourself up in ideas and theories to explain and justify and make things fit. You start with the claim “I have come to the conclusion that every living being in the universe has [a] soul “ but never adequately give us a 'why'. What is this based on? Or is it just a question of 'must'? We must have souls because there is so much we can't yet fully explain? I'm afraid this is the opposite of logic, and there is nothing observable, empirical or inductive to suggest a soul or anything else supernatural, magical or divine.

My perspective: no souls, no reincarnation, no afterlife. Just this. The only meaning in life is to be found in the living of it rather than through assumptions of the greater and grander outside what we can know.

[dogboy]

This summer when I was riding my bike out on the bike path, I had a lot of time to think. Here I was surrounded by nature, trees, rock, incredible beauty. You could smell nature at work, almost hear the trees grow. I couldn't help but think beyond my small spot on planet Earth, and think outside our universe. It seems creation is going on constantly, without any concept of time. Somewhere in the vastness is all of us, all part of creation.

Some people have theorized that God is all of this, some conscious force that encompasses everything, including us. A strange thing has begun to happen to me. I feel like I'm not far from death, like it is a shadow in the dark, close by, something that I can touch, something that has form and definition. For some reason, I'm not at all afraid of it. In fact, I want to embrace it. Like I said in my story Going Home, Mikie got under my skin. I feel like I'm ready to go home.

We are part of this ever evolving creation. I don't think it's unreal to accept that we will go on, just as the universes go on, just as everything has gone on, forever and forever. This pervading feeling is changing me, I'm just not sure if it's for good or bad. It's made everything around me seem somewhat trite. It makes me want to seek out those things which have beauty. I'm disgusted by cruelty and prejudices. I simply want to complete my travel, and that seems close at hand.

[Charlie F]

The biggest problem with dualism in my opinion (or in your case a sort of "Trialism", having three different substances) is how the mind and body (and soul) interact.

If my mind stores my memories, for example, how is it taking the physical stuff that is happening in my brain and moving them to the mind? I see a donkey, in my brain certain processes happen, how do the brain processes turn into mind ones? If they are distinct substances, this would be impossible!
Worst still, we can show how memories work in the brain (using fancy scans etc.). We can explain memories as being a perfectly physical thing, no mind needed. The same goes for instincts: many of our basic instincts will be programmed by our DNA, not some magical innate soul.
Worse even still is the other direction: how does the soul/mind affect my body?
Deciding to move my hands:
Soul ---> Brain ---> Hands

But surely this can be just explained in terms of the body:

X ---> Brain ---> Hands

'X' here can stand for other brain processes that made this come about:

Audible input of somebody saying 'Raise your hand if you want a muffin' ---> Brain interpreting this input ---> Brain making a 'yes!!' decision ---> Hand raising

We could say that the soul/mind and the brain work together, but as we can explain the whole thing using the physical it makes the soul/mind look quite pointless.

There's plenty of interesting thought-experiments in which people copy brain states, and travel through teleporters that explore ideas like this. Check out some Philosophy of Mind, particularly Descartes if you haven't already.

[Mako]

Originally Posted by link

He spoke earlier of "Soul energy" which he believes is in all living things. Mathematically, the amount of energy on the earth could be the same now as it was when the earth was first created, it was just spread out in different places. There could also have been stagnant soul energy that wasn't being used at the moment. So a mathematical equation could be "Total Soul Energy = Current Population + X" with X being the amount of people that could be created with the amount of energy on Earth. As the population gets bigger, X gets smaller, balancing the equation.

We can even add more variables for other living things with Soul Energy to the equation, but sense we don't know the total Soul energy, we can never know X, but as long as there is an X there is room to expand.

To note, he could be calling it "Frosted Flakes" but the term "Soul Energy" is meaningless unless supported by defining characteristics.

So if we're discarding the classic notion of "the soul", since we've already covered personality and thought patterns are the result of genetics and brain construct. It leads me to question whats being proposed as the soul, and what it's function is.



A few people have made the "It can't be proven or disproven" argument, and I'd like to put an end to that here because it's bull plop. Basic logic dictates that the burden of proof is the one who makes the unproven claim. Until evidence can be presented to support a claim, said claim can be dismissed without evidence as untrue until evidence does arise. That is of course if it ever does arise or even could. As if it is untrue, then such evidence will never materialize through legitimate means. Or if it can't materialize due to the nature of the hypothesis, then this pushes it further into absurdity. No evidence to prove or disprove doesn't put true and false on equal footing. On the contrary, it pushes the probability of being false dramatically high. Furthermore if it can't be tested because "it's not physical" then your pushing into the realm of fiction and disproving it yourself. Everything is physical. There is no "beyond physical".

I'm sure I'll get some interesting rebuttals to the last line. But before responding, first ask yourself a few questions. "Where does <example> come from?" "What causes <example>" "Does example actually exist, or do I just perceive it to exist?"
You'll find you will always be led to a physical conclusion.


Jaiden sums up the rest of my feelings quite nicely on the subject of the soul and such, so I won't repeat them and continue to push others to think.

[ade]

a curious and telling thing about joy is that, as soon as the mind questions it, joy departs.
sorrow is the same, but much more stubborn.

[dogboy]

Originally Posted by Charlie F

The biggest problem with dualism in my opinion (or in your case a sort of "Trialism", having three different substances) is how the mind and body (and soul) interact.

If my mind stores my memories, for example, how is it taking the physical stuff that is happening in my brain and moving them to the mind? I see a donkey, in my brain certain processes happen, how do the brain processes turn into mind ones? If they are distinct substances, this would be impossible!
Worst still, we can show how memories work in the brain (using fancy scans etc.). We can explain memories as being a perfectly physical thing, no mind needed. The same goes for instincts: many of our basic instincts will be programmed by our DNA, not some magical innate soul.
Worse even still is the other direction: how does the soul/mind affect my body?
Deciding to move my hands:
Soul ---> Brain ---> Hands

But surely this can be just explained in terms of the body:

X ---> Brain ---> Hands

'X' here can stand for other brain processes that made this come about:

Audible input of somebody saying 'Raise your hand if you want a muffin' ---> Brain interpreting this input ---> Brain making a 'yes!!' decision ---> Hand raising

We could say that the soul/mind and the brain work together, but as we can explain the whole thing using the physical it makes the soul/mind look quite pointless.

There's plenty of interesting thought-experiments in which people copy brain states, and travel through teleporters that explore ideas like this. Check out some Philosophy of Mind, particularly Descartes if you haven't already.

It's a good argument, and your college pursuits are serving you well. But I would ask, what pushes those same hands to compose, such as Beethoven when he wrote his symphonies, or to play the music of Chopin? If we are nothing more than the sum and substance of primate survival instincts, ever evolving from complex chemical compounds, why then would we reach for so much more? How can chemicals and cells conceive their own beginning and end, and theorize about them? It's one thing to reach for a jaw bone to gnaw on, quite another to create beauty, care for the sick, and give every thing one has to help another.

[Mako]

Originally Posted by dogboy

It's a good argument, and your college pursuits are serving you well. But I would ask, what pushes those same hands to compose, such as Beethoven when he wrote his symphonies, or to play the music of Chopin? If we are nothing more than the sum and substance of primate survival instincts, ever evolving from complex chemical compounds, why then would we reach for so much more? How can chemicals and cells conceive their own beginning and end, and theorize about them? It's one thing to reach for a jaw bone to gnaw on, quite another to create beauty, care for the sick, and give every thing one has to help another.

You ask why as if it's always been this way. We are a species that derives from another, that derived from another and so on. Our bipedal hominid sister species died out where we succeeded. We didn't magically get a soul popped into us one day (though that's what scientologists believe). We didn't cast off the rules of nature, we just adapted to them differently. Humans slowly augmented ourselves with tools and clothes, and latter our environment in such a way we were able to break free from the species vs. species competition. Where its a human vs. human competition. The requirements for our survival changed with them.